The Australian Kyajo Ri Expedition 2005

The Challenge

A local Canberra climbing team aims to be the first Australian team to climb a mountain called Kyajo Ri a 6,180 metre peak in Nepal. It is in the Rowaling Himal, which is in the Gokyo region of Nepal (just west of Mt Everest). And one team member could be the first woman in the world to climb Kyajo Ri.

4 November 2005

Be sure to check the Photo Gallery. The first of the photos from the expedition are up and there should be more in a few days.

The Mountain

Kyajo Ri is a spectacular, and very beautiful mountain which was first climbed by a British and French team in 2002. If successful, the Canberra attempt will be the first ascent by an Australian expedition, and the first time the peak has been climbed by a woman.

The “standard” ascent of Kyajo Ri from base camp at around 4,600 metres to Camp 1 at over 5200 metres involves a 2 hour hike over a grassy spur and boulders. Camp 1 to Camp 2 involves some technical climbing at French Alpine (AD+) over mixed face slopes up to 55° and the negotiation of a glacier. Camp 2 to the summit at 6,186 metres has been rated at French Alpine Grade D by the previous expedition. It involves a 15 hour return journey over a glacial ridge, with some mixed rock and ice pitches up to 60°.

Following the expedition video and slide presentations will be held at a number of venues in Canberra to provide sponsors with the opportunity to advertise their products and services , and to organise further support for the Fred Hollows Foundation in Nepal.

Why do they do it?

"But this was only another episode. Down in the valley again I should at once look around for some other goal and if it did not exist, I would create it!

I do not know why other people associate a man's happiness with the satisfaction of all his desires - a kind of eternal beautitide, which could just as well be a state of complete apathy. The completely happy man would have nothing left to say, nothing left to do.

For myself I prefer an unattainable happiness, always near, always elusive: the prize which vanishes every time one grasps it, to give way to another, still harder, still more distant. The moments when the heart really overflows with happiness come when the sense of life is heightened by tension and struggle - the actual moment of conquest, or more often defeat, and not the dead moments when victory has been achieved."

Giusto Gervasutti, writng in Gervasutti Climbs upon his difficult first ascent of the East Face of the Grandes Jorasses in 1942

The Cause

The expedition will be raising money for the Fred Hollows Foundation which has a very active program throughout many of the regions of Nepal. The Foundation has screened more than 950,000 people and performed nearly 70,000 operations throughout Nepal since 1994. Most of these have been cataract surgeries.

Acknowledgements

The team would like to thank